


Remembering to Breathe

by startwithsparks



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hospitals, Illnesses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:44:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startwithsparks/pseuds/startwithsparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is sick, which draws the rest of the pack out to make sure he's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering to Breathe

Scott couldn't count the times anymore where he was thankful for Allison's presence next to him, but rushing out of his house that evening with her fingers firmly laced with his would linger at the top of the list for some time. He had to concentrate on her skin, on her pulse against his fingertips, on the bite of her car keys against his palm, to keep from transforming right there out of panic. It was such a sensory overload that he didn't smell the other wolf crashing towards them or hear the squeal of tires on the suburban street as Derek's Camero hurled along. He almost crashed into the back of Allison's car, and the Camero gave a rough humph of disapproval as Derek slammed the brakes. When the door opened, Scott caught the whiff of panic that blew off his Alpha and skittered to a halt in the driveway.

"What's going on?" Derek demanded, plowing up the driveway towards them, every muscle in his body tense.

For a moment Scott couldn't speak, he just shook his head, but there was Allison next to him ready to save his ass again. "They rushed Stiles to the hospital," she said, rocking nervously to her toes behind Scott. "Scott's mom called when they announced that the ambulance was on its way back, she couldn't tell us any more than that," she babbled now, "she wasn't even really supposed to tell us that because of privacy and-"

Derek growled and Allison went silent. Scott expected Derek's minute look of concern to vanish completely once he realized that all the waves of worry that were probably coming off Scott, stinking up the neighborhood to anything with heightened senses, were only for Stiles. But to his surprise, Derek's heavy brows furrowed for a moment and he crunched his hands into fists. Not knowing what was wrong with Stiles had gotten him riled in the worst way and he felt bad letting his mind wander to the fact that his Alpha had not only felt that disturbance but had also come rushing over to investigate it. He was almost proud, or he would have been if he wasn't terrified at the same time. Sometimes he could smell or sense Stiles, but his senses were too clouded with worry and Stiles was too far away from him to get a read on anything useful.

"Get in the car," Derek muttered through clenched teeth, the sound of his voice - thick and heavy - made Scott jump a little. His eyes flicked towards Allison's Mazda, but Derek gave another faint rumble. "My car," he clarified, "I drive better and faster than either of you and we don't have time to stand around debating it."

He didn't wait long enough to get an answer from either of them, he just slid back into his car and pushed forward the passenger's seat so Allison could crawl into the back. She stalled next to him, she had never felt comfortable around Derek, but Scott lightly tugged her forward and she gave only a moment's resistance before she clamored in and pulled back the seat for Scott to climb in after her. They were out of the driveway before Scott even had time to latch his seatbelt around him, humming through residential streets and down unused back streets until he dropped down to the main road towards the hospital.

True to his word, Derek did drive faster than either of them were capable of. Even Scott with his heightened senses couldn't possibly have handled the curves and flow of traffic with such easy fluidity as Derek handled them. The only sound was the steady drone of the heater layered over the in and out of the engine as Derek eased through traffic, not even the radio played and no one dared to speak. What would they talk about anyhow? Scott had to remind himself not to break Derek's car when he reached over to hold the door handle, trying not to watch the way the car ducked through traffic or just how close they rode up on other vehicles. He watched Allison's face in the rearview mirror instead as she fingered a piece of broken glass that she'd pried out of the back seat.

The tires squealed as they rounded into the hospital parking lot, and when Scott looked up out the window his heart twisted briefly, threatening to lurch into his throat out of fear and anxiety. He saw Derek's dark gaze flick over briefly and he pulled to a stop in front of the entrance. Scott quickly ambled out, pulling the seat forward and offering his hand to Allison to help her out as well, giving Derek a long glance. He wanted to ask if he was staying or going, but the words caught on his tongue for a moment too long - and maybe Scott didn't want to admit that he needed Derek there as much as he needed Allison - before she pulled him towards the door and Derek reached over to pull the car door closed.

It didn't occur to him until he was coming up to the nurse's desk that he had no idea where they'd taken Stiles or even whether they'd tell him if he asked. Scott just assumed that he'd find either his mother or the sheriff and they would point him in the right direction, but neither one were there and Scott wasn't as familiar with the nurses on the night shift as he was with the ones who worked during the day. With Allison lingering close to his side, he leaned against the desk and flashed the nurse his best smile. "I'm looking for Melissa McCall," he said, "I'm her son."

"She's on break," the nurse answered without looking up from her computer screen, tapping in patient information with a practiced rhythm.

Scott frowned over his shoulder at Allison, who gave him a reassuring glance and a nudge. He turned back, "Sheriff Stilinski hasn't by any chance been in tonight, has he?"

The nurse paused briefly, trying to decide whether it violated any patient privacy protocols to answer him. But since the sheriff himself wasn't a patient, she eventually glanced up at him and nodded her head quickly towards the long hallway to her left. Scott smiled brightly at her, mouthing thank you as he grabbed Allison's hand and led her off down the hallway.

The hallway came to an end at a waiting room with a vending machine and an instant coffee dispenser wedged in among faux-leather blue couches and matching gray chairs. He'd spent too many nights doing homework in that waiting room, whether because he'd done something stupid and his mom had grounded him or because she just wanted him nearby after the divorce. He'd also spent his share of time in some of these rooms when his asthma got the better of him. Those memories of his own fear and pain only made it more uncomfortable to look down the hall and see his mom, Sheriff Stilinski, and a small cluster of nurses lingering outside a room.

"I should stay here," Allison said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "You go ahead, I'll be right here."

Scott nodded, squeezing her hand and stealing a swift kiss before she ducked into the waiting room and he made his way down the hall. The sheriff was the first one to notice him, and he stopped talking mid-phrase to motion Scott towards them.

"My mom..." Scott started, looking between the two adults.

"I know," he nodded, "it's alright. I would have called you myself, but I didn't even think about it until we were already here, and by then your mom already had."

The sheriff looked paler and a little older than the last time Scott saw him, and a nervousness twist in his gut. "Is he alright?"

"I'm fine," Stiles called from the room behind Scott, just before he succumbed to a fit of wet, hacking coughs that had him doubled over the side of the bed, face pressed into the curve of his elbow. Scott whirled around to look at him, torn between smiling at his very much alive and not mortally wounded friend, and frowning at the obvious state of his lungs. "I decided," Stiles continued, dropping back against the pillow again and drawing in heavy, rasping breaths, "that the only way I'll ever get Lydia to love me is to die young and pretty like those poets she keeps pining over."

Scott snorted. "You're not going to die, dude..." he said, then immediately glanced over at the sheriff. "He's not, is he?"

"No," he answered, shaking his head. "They drew blood for tests when we got here and we're waiting for someone to come down and get him for an x-ray, but they said it sounded like pneumonia."

Scott scrunched his face and looked at his mom. "You don't want me to go in there, do you?" he said, he could tell by the look on her face and the way they were leaning against the opposite wall like they were all afraid they could catch it from here.

"I know I probably can't stop you," she answered.

It would take too long to try to come up with an excuse why it didn't matter. He knew he hadn't had a problem with his asthma since he got bit, but he'd never asked Derek about whether werewolves were susceptible to other things. He couldn't very well stand out here and wait and at this point turning around and going home wasn't really an option either. Just because he knew Stiles would, eventually, recover didn't make him want to stay any less. "I'll wear a mask," he finally said with a shrug, "and I'll wash my hands every time I leave the room. I'll wear a full hazmat suit if that'll make you guys feel better."

His mom's expression softened and the sheriff even managed a faint smile. "The mask will be fine," she said, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder as she scooted past him and made her way back towards the front desk again.

The sheriff looked awkwardly between Scott and Stiles, drawing in a heavy breath. "You'll be alright now?" he asked, and Scott watched Stiles force an uncomfortable smile.

"Yeah," he nodded, "as soon as people stop treating me like a plague victim, I'll be great." Father and son exchanged a look and Stiles rubbed awkwardly at his chest. "I'm fine," he said again, "go back to work. Between Mrs. McCall and Allison - who Scott no doubt brought along with him - I'm sure I'll have plenty of people making sure I do exactly what the doctors tell me to do."

There was something unsaid there and Scott knew enough about his best friend to have a good idea of what it was. Neither one of them had very good associations with hospitals, considering how much time they'd spend here when Stiles' mom was sick. It probably wasn't easy for the sheriff to stand here waiting around, no more than it was for him to leave his son here without him. The conflict was all over his face, and Scott wasn't so oblivious that he couldn't see it for what it was. He reached out and set a hand on the sheriff's arm. "I've got it covered," he said with a smile. "Allison's in the waiting room and if I can't make Stiles do something, I'm sure she can."

"She's scary when she wants to be," Stiles chimed in, just before another rough coughing fit.

The sheriff managed a faint smile and he nodded. "Alright," he said, "but if anything changes, at all, you both have my cell phone number and I want you to use it."

"No problem," Scott said, still grinning at him like he thought that would make it any better. "We'll keep you totally updated on everything. Don't worry about it, we'll take great care of him. My mom's pulling a double tonight."

Something in there seemed to, reluctantly, ease a few of his concerns and the sheriff turned to nod awkwardly at Stiles, who waved back at him. Scott watched the sheriff turn and make his way down the hallway again. He'd just turned the corner past the waiting room when Scott caught Derek's large, dark figure step forward from one of the empty rooms. He hadn't even seen the man come down the hall in the first place, too wrapped up in his mom and the sheriff and Stiles to notice much of anything, and he shifted awkwardly as Derek came up on him and forced the breathing mask into his hand.

"Your mom wanted me to give you those," he said.

There were three of them there, assuming the third was for Allison, but Scott knew that there was no way they'd get Derek into one. He shoved the other two in his pocket for now. "I thought you left," he said.

Derek frowned, offering a faint one-shouldered shrug. "Yeah, well... I didn't."

"Hey," Stiles called after the two of them, leaning to the side to see around the doorway into the hall. "Your sick friend is still sitting in here by himself while you two chat it up out there, and the least you could do is turn on the TV for me. You know," he paused, sucking in a quick breath, "if you're just going to stand around anyway."

Scott grinned over his shoulder, "I'm going to get Allison," he said. "I'll be right back."

"Of course you are," Stiles muttered.

When Scott got back just a few quick moments later, with Allison pulling the elastic bands of the mask behind her ears and trying to untangle her hair from them, Derek had already made himself comfortable. He sat on the end of the bed with his back towards the door, one knee bent and resting on the bed next to Stiles' leg. His leather jacket laid draped over the arm of a nearby chair, one of the few times Scott had ever seen him without it. It was a bit jarring to see, especially because he'd never known Derek to get along with anyone, much less Stiles - who'd gotten him arrested twice now.

"I could always bite you," Derek said, a faint hint of amusement in his voice.

Stiles pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head, shooting Scott and Allison a commiserating look as they came into the room. Allison carefully shifted Derek's jacket so she didn't sit on it, and fit herself down into the chair, while Scott sat on the other side of the bed near enough to her to touch.

"This guy," Stiles said. He turned his attention back to Derek, "It could also kill me," he said, "which at this point I'm thinking is probably the more likely outcome. Besides, once a month the lot of you completely lose the ability to stay rationally thinking people and, whether you like it or not, you need me to have any sort of constructive plan when something weird happens. I'm the brains," he shrugged, "and if I was like the rest of you, I'd be the same kind of brutish-" he cast a glance at Scott, "-blundering idiot as the rest of you too."

Scott watched a smile flick briefly across Derek's face before it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, replaced by his blank, thinking expression. "I'm an alpha," he said, "you wouldn't die. But point taken."

Grinning his usual lopsided grin, Stiles looked over at Allison and sighed, "She can accessorize a hospital mask," he said, and the smile was obvious in Allison's eyes. "She's perfect. I don't know how she does it or why she's interested in my idiot best friend, but we all have to have faults somewhere."

"I'm glad you're feeling better, Stiles," she said, her voice still sweet and playful despite being muffled by the mask.


End file.
